On The Streets of Philadelphia

Leaving NYC we take the Acela Express train to Philadelphia. It is all business class and is great to travel in and do stuff on the computer.

We got in at about 1pm so dropped off the bags and walked the 4 blocks from the hotel to the visitor center.

It was the next block up from Independence Hall.


A few of the historic sites around the area are the Quaker Meeting House,


Benjamin Franklin's grave,


and the National Constitution Center. We went in here and it was great. A spoken history of the constitution mixed with film and photos in a stadium like theatre, a live performance illustrating modern interpretation of the constitution and rights and a chronology of US history. It was incredibly enjoyable and informative.




Next stop was the site of Ben Franklin's house. Ben's story is that as a teenager in Boston, where he was born, he was apprenticed to his older brother, a publisher of a newspaper. Ben got caught sending fake letters in about the life of an imaginary woman and fled to Philadelphia at the age of 17. He made his way and eventually had his own print shop and house here. It had been built over and has recently been dug up. The archway, however, is original.

Tuesday morning we had booked the Independence Hall tour, which is free, you just need to get on of the limited number of tickets. We played it wise and booked on the internet for 10am. Then we turned up at the visitor center to pick up the tickets just before 9am. THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND!!! It was freaky! A fine, warm fall day and no one around. So we had an hour to kill, so we headed to the Liberty Bell which you don't need a ticket for, just show up. Here we are waiting for the gate to open at 9am. THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND!!!

This must be a rare sight with very few people around it.



That's Independence Hall in the background out through the window.

Outside the Liberty Bell Center with a reflection of Independence Hall.

Once done there, we wandered over to the Hall. THERE WAS NO ONE AROUND!!! No line for security, only a few people in the grounds, and when we had our tour of Congress Hall, we were the only two!

House of Representatives.

Senate.

Marie Antoinette and

LOUIS XVI. I KNEW THAT. You went the wrong way old King Louis! (Really wrong if your name changed :) )

In one wing of the Hall was the original ink-pot that they used to sign the declaration.

So we saw everything and it was still only 9:40am so we joined the line (haha 4 people of one family) for the independence Hall. Now on the internet you could only book tours on the hour so we thought we were waiting until 10. About 25 people joined the line in the next 5 minutes then we were called in. She then said it was for the 9:45 tour and we said we had tickets for the 10am, but she said we could go in. They are capable of taking 80 people in each tour. She didn't even check tickets. We got a 10 minute talk in the east wing, then went in and saw the old courthouse on the west side of the ground floor for 10 minutes.

Finally we got 10 minutes in the room where the Declaration of Independence was discussed, drafted, written, and signed. It was signed on July 2nd 1776 and adopted on July 4th 1776. Washington's chair is the original and famous for the sun on the back, but a lot of the furniture, including the chandelier are other period pieces. Of course the ink-pot is a replica.

After all that hype, it was 10:45, so we wandered around and saw a few other things.

Second bank of the United States.

We went into the Carpenters' Hall where the trade was taught, a kind of union was formed and was taken over by congress where they wrote the first Articles of Confederation (the thing that kind of bound the states together before they tried to write them again but came out with the constitution instead).

Look closely at the name about third from the bottom!

Outside the living history museum where they are still collecting artifacts.

Local landmark!

Betsy was a seamstress, but is famous for sewing the first flag for the United States. This was where that was done.



So we had seen everything (and walked up to city hall and back) by 3pm so ended our tour of Philly in an Irish pub. Unfortunately we didn't get a Philly cheese-steak but I did have philly cheese on my bagel for breakfast! All in all, it was a great few days. Learnt a lot and it was fun.